


Where Her Light Goes

by eventidefalls



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Game: Kingdom Hearts III, Gen, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Spoilers - Kingdom Hearts III, Twilight Town (Kingdom Hearts)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 13:16:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17725907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eventidefalls/pseuds/eventidefalls
Summary: Like the other Princesses of Heart, Kairi finally passes down her power to someone else.





	Where Her Light Goes

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own Kingdom Hearts or any of its content, just the concept that birthed this fanfic and the fanfic itself.

For as long as Roxas has known Olette, there is nothing different about her, whether she was made out of data or of flesh and blood.

Yet, she is unique and he is very well aware of that: he can sense an insurmountable of light within her, something that had not been there before.

Another thing that Roxas knows is that Olette has a keen sense of self-awareness: he knows she can feel it too. He sees confusion flicker across her face at times, as though she is not quite familiar with her own actions. He can see the light brimming with her, spilling from from her being and to the tips of her fingers.

There is a glow in her eyes, reflective of the wholesomeness of her intentions, that he could not quite shake from his memory.

The golden-haired boy makes a mental note to himself to keep an eye on her for the next couple of days or, possibly, weeks.

* * *

As soon as her eyes flutter open, she can sense there’s something off about her. While she can’t quite place a finger on what exactly felt different, Olette knows that whatever she is feeling— it is anything but ominous.

Hayner, Pence and herself have finally met Roxas in the flesh. It isn’t hard to miss the nostalgia etched into the lines of his face as he grinned brightly at the sight of them before remembering that this isn’t the Hayner, Pence and Olette he is familiar with.

The emerald-eyed girl is the first person to welcome him, stretching her arms wide open to bring him into her arms.

“Hey Roxas! It’s nice to meet you for real,” Olette chirped. Not long afterwards, Hayner and Pence chimed in, treating him as though he were an old friend they had not seen in a long, long time.

Like they had done with him, they familiarised themselves with the others: Isa, Lea and Xion. Olette’s eyes fall on her and it doesn’t take her long to realise that the raven-haired girl bore an exact resemblance to their auburn-haired friend.

“I didn’t know Kairi had a sister,” Pence remarked, with Hayner nodding vigorously in tandem. Olette does not voice it out but she noticed the uncomfortable look shared between the others (in particular, Lea and Roxas) and a flash of confusion that crosses Xion’s face before she’s grinning once again — that is enough to tell her that there is something they’re not telling them.

She isn’t quite sure whether she wants to know either.

* * *

Time passes, as does the enrollment deadline for school. With Isa and Lea as the acting guardians of Roxas and Xion, it does not take much convincing to enroll them into the same classes as the three Twilight Town natives.

Xion thinks that it’s good to lead a life of normalcy. Much was sacrificed in order to attain their own bodies, their own heart and their own lives to lead, to call their own. With the threat of darkness minimised, the gates to the other worlds were allowed to remain open. With people like Riku and Aqua, officially Keyblade Masters, the world could be at peace.

Of course, Lea also had begun training to better his use of the Keyblade but there were times where she noticed that he’d revert to playing with his two discs, missing the flexibility of using chakrams as a weapon.

Sometimes she catches Isa and Lea stuck in moments of their own, talking about a girl whose name sounds foreign to her and about their lives back in Radiant Garden, before they had gotten their hearts taken from them. From the way Lea spoke, it happened way too fast. In spite of their past, Isa (it still felt strange addressing him by his real name) was just like her: a pawn in Xehanort’s chess game.

However, there is someone else who has caught her attention: Olette. Being the only girls in the group allowed them the opportunity to bond. Warm, caring, but stern and willing to talk with her spine — that’s how Xion would describe her. It is reminiscent of how Isa watches over them and yet, engages himself in their little parades because Lea – Isa’s best friend in the life before Organization XIII (you’d never hear him admit it) – is an instigator of such antics that he can’t find it in himself to stay away.

As of late, there is something about Olette that she can sense: there is a familiar warmth, reminiscent of Kairi when she never came back, right before Sora set off on a journey to find her. It is a familiar feeling and one that she knows to bring up with Naminé the next time she visits.

* * *

“I believe that Olette has been ordained as one of the new Princesses of Hearts,” is what Yen Sid says to Riku, whose eyes widen with surprise.

Xion’s texts from the night before were fresh in his mind, as were her questions regarding Olette’s light. It was good to know that Mickey’s suggestion to come to Yen Sid had been a good one.

“None other than Kairi, I believe. She is the last Princess of Heart to relinquish her power,” he continued, as though it was nothing new to him. “I have told Sora about this before when he traversed the worlds about the Princesses of Hearts: when their time to protect is over, their power will be handed down to someone else whose heart is ready to take over the mantle.”

Riku gives himself a moment for the news to sink in, apprehension written all over his face. He could only wonder how long has it been since Kairi was annihilated, right in front of their very eyes.

Right in front of Sora’s eyes.

How long had it been since the others gained vessels of their own? Roxas, Lea and Xion were already revived. However, Naminé had been particularly difficult. She had been within Kairi at that point in time. Not only had Master Xehanort taken out one person, but he had also taken out two.

Thankfully, Ansem the Wise still had her data and was able to breathe life into the empty vessel that the other him had managed to retrieve, thus granting her a new beginning. Riku was indeed happy for her but the presence of both Naminé and Xion only made the process even tougher on him.

It is Aqua who finally breaks the silence, having been standing next to Yen Sid, observing the conversation playing out. “I’m guessing that our job is to protect her and make sure that she is well defended.”

Yen Sid nods his head.

“What happens to the previous ones? What sort of powers will they lose?” Mickey inquired, wondering what else did they not know about the Princesses of Heart.

“They will still be able to sense the darkness but they no longer have the ability to bestow power upon others. Neither will they be safe travelling through the dark corridors,” Yen Sid informed him, equally uncertain of their abilities.

He rises from his seat and paces up and down the confines of his room. He could feel the gazes of Aqua, Riku and Mickey burning into his back, hoping for answers that only he could provide.

With a single glance out of the window, Yen Sid allowed himself to relish in the sight of the starry sky before taking a deep breath and turned to face the Keyblade Masters.

“Go forth. Carry out what it is that you need to do.”

* * *

“I think that Olette’s been imbued with the power of light,” Xion admits to Naminé when the artist visits them. Roxas had taken the liberty to grab some ice cream for the both of them. Isa and Lea both have full-time jobs to attend, leaving the two girls at the top of the clock tower to talk about girl things.

Naminé stares at her for a little bit longer, icy blue eyes unreadable.

“What makes you think so?” she asks after a few moments of silence.

Xion continues, “This feeling I have… it’s the same feeling I had with Kairi but this time, I can sense it radiating from Olette. There is an imagery in my head: a sandy beach, underneath the rays of the sun and not far from it, there is a field of hibiscus flowers, blooming from hill to vale.”

As she goes on, she can see Naminé sketching into the paper of her sketchbook. Xion can still remember that Naminé refused to sketch in it for a long time. Nobody knew the reason and when Roxas managed to coax something out of her, she still remained apprehensive, well aware of the damage that her memory changing abilities had brought about.

“I believe Kairi has passed on her power,” Naminé finally said, dusting away the eraser dust that littered the surface of the paper. “The weight of a light so pure is a heavy responsibility to carry.”

Another voice – a familiar voice – interrupts them, “So, who did she pass it on to?”

“Olette,” the blonde-haired girl informs him, accepting the sea-salt ice cream that had been offered to her. As she does so, she fills in Roxas on what was explained to Xion earlier while he had been away getting ice cream.

“That makes a lot of sense,” he finally says, pouring out all the little details about Olette that he could not quite fathom. “I’ve been sensing a great amount of light from her but I didn’t know why, or even how. If she's chosen as one of the new Seven Lights… Well, that'd explain it.”

Roxas then goes into details about the little things he has noticed in Olette like how people seemed to get punch-drunk whenever she was in their presence, about how they’d flock to her even more often than before, about how the little brush of her knuckles against someone else could make them gaze upon her as though she were an aphrodisiac, waiting to be relished.

At the same time, he also noticed the increase of Heartless lingering in the darker corners of Twilight Town. Of course, he’d make a quick job out out of them before they could harm anyone.

Xion added on that they had both informed Isa and Lea about this and the four of them had taken to doing patrols every night, before they needed to retire to bed.

Thankfully, the only place that seemed mostly infested with the Heartless were the sewers and, as far as they were concerned, nobody was dumb enough to go down there at night.

“There will come a time when the world will need you again,” Naminé stated, toying with the winner stick in her hand. “When that time comes, you might need to leave this place behind for a little bit. I suggest it’d be best to engage Hayner and Pence as well.”

She went silent for a bit before speaking once again, picking up a pencil to continue her sketching. Roxas peered over her shoulder, curious to see what sort of masterpiece his friend was coming up with.

“They care for her very much, don’t they?” she asked rhetorically, looking down at the rough outline of a sandy-haired boy in love with Struggle, a brunette whose presence filled others with warmth and the boy who was found no shame in being a nerd at heart.

* * *

For as long as he can remember, Olette has always been the girl that everyone loves and goes to whenever her help was needed. She had been elected as the class monitor, often in charge of collecting homework or running errands on behalf of the teachers.

Pence remembers the first time they met: they were in class and he was being picked on for being far too eccentric, far too absorbed into the idea of sleuthing and being a superhero. People thought of him as strange but his mother had always taught him to be proud of himself and take pride in his own achievements.

He was wasn’t a bad student, per say, but he was fairly difficult to work with because he was ambitious in his ideas so when Olette had volunteered to work with him, he was pleasantly surprised; no one else usually wanted to.

“Hi Pence,” she greeted him with a cheery smile upon her lips as they met up in their school’s local library to do their assignment: to write a five-page report on how Twilight Town came to be. “How’s things going on your end?”

“Oh man, it’s been great so far. Gathering information is tough but I know my sources,” Pence explained. “Twilight Town’s history seems so shrouded in darkness and one thing I do know for sure is that the books don’t always tell you everything.”

Olette balked in response, looking at the pile of notes that Pence had brought with him before dipping into her bag to take out her own notes. There was a stark difference in the way it was organised: Olette’s notes were neatly written, categorised accordingly, while Pence’s notes looked like a bunch of scribbles vomited onto a singular shit of paper, staining it with whatever he had managed to gather. It was hard to discern what was necessary and what was redundant.

She took a deep breath and huffed lightly, before saying, “Okay, let’s start with this…”

It took them a long time but about two and a half hours later, the pair managed to condense it into a couple of papers instead of a mountain of them that Penceh ad before.

“You know, Pence. I’m glad we’re partners,” Olette remarked. “People might think you’re weird, but I think you have an unorthodox way of going about things and seeing the world. People tend to forget that you’re a normal kid. If they bothered to pay attention, they’d know what drives you is your curiosity for everything and anything.”

Pence remained silent, staring at her with such wide-eyed wonder.

“That curiosity is a great thing to make in a friend.”

He let out a wide grin, stretching from ear to ear, in response to that.

* * *

Hayner came into the picture much later than Pence did.

When Hayner first met Olette, they did not quite start out on a good note. Olette was all about being a goody two shoes and there was a systematic approach to things she did that infuriated him till no end: the way she often reminded him that his homework needed to be done to letting him know that he had to tie his shoelaces.

For as long as he could remember, Olette and himself were classmates. He was the rebel that nobody liked and she was the teacher’s pet. He was all about running from responsibilities while she was all about facing them head-on, with a zest that could not be compared to life’s woes.

He didn’t understand why the green-eyed girl needed to be on his case all the time. Did she think of herself as a sagely student, one of those who held the answers for everything and anything, including life itself?

Hayner could only scoff at the thought. He was in charge of his own destiny, not her; who was she to think of herself as someone who was accountable for his actions? That didn’t make sense. At the very least, not to the sandy-haired boy who could be bothered to give an arse about homework or school most of the time.

“Hayner, Miss Glaceret said that you need to start working on it. If not, you’re going to fail!” Olette reminded him, the sound of her voice wringing his ears.

“I’m not a charity case,” he seethed, slapping her hand away from his shoulder. He heard a wince – an indication that he had put a lot more force than necessary – but he did not care; Olette needed to lay off him. “And I don’t need to see a psychiatrist for anger management issues or whatever. You’re not my mother.”

He could feel the girl’s eyes burning into his back but she should know better than to guilt-trip him: it was not going to work — Hayner had far too many people doing that before.

It isn’t long until he hears the sound of footsteps fading into the distance that he lets out relieved breath. Something tells him that she isn’t going to bother him anymore.

Hayner still sees Olette around in class. However, this time, things have gotten better.

The next time he sees Olette, he's skipping class. The door of the rooftop was left slightly ajar and as he draws closer to it, his hand reaching to push the door open, he hears the faint sound of sniffling.

Olette was crying.

Hayner debates with himself about whether he should pretend to ignore her or attempt to make her feel better. In the end, he opts for the latter but not before potentially getting himself into trouble: sea-salt ice cream was almost unattainable in school; he could only get it outside. Thankfully, the nearest store isn’t too far from school so by the time he returns, she’s still there. 

“Here,” he offered a sea-salt ice cream to her. “You look like you could use one.”

Shell-shocked by his initiation, Olette stares at him with her jaw dropped until Hayner has to shove the ice cream into her hands and sits on the empty space next to her, willing to put himself out there. There is no sense of shame or embarrassment: he has said how he truly feels but he isn’t dumb enough to hold onto that feeling for long.

Olette, on the other hand, seems to have misunderstood the main point. He supposed he could not blame her, considering how heated things had become within seconds.

“You need to know what boundaries are,” he explained, taking a bite of the cyan-coloured dessert as his eyes remained fixated on the ground. He wasn’t going to apologise for what he had done but he figured he might as well make it crystal clear that he was not entirely mad at her as person; just her actions. “Not everyone appreciates being micro-monitored, y’know.”

“Speak for yourself,” is her comeback, but there is no malice in her words, just embarrassment mixed with a tincture of playfulness. “How did you even get out of school to get this?”

Hayner makes a zipping motion — his fingers swiping across his mouth, accompanied by a cheeky grin.

“That’s my secret.”

* * *

“Olette, ” Roxas addresses her with an unfamiliar sternness in his voice that is often reserved for his friends who are aware of the state of the world. He knows that it is unwise to tell them to everyone but right now, he feels that Olette does deserve to know the truth.

He would know put them through the same suffering he had gone through: living without his memories had been nothing but a headache, even though he now understood that it was a necessity.

To his right was Xion, to which he was thankful for. Roxas knew he needed someone to reassure him, to be his pillar.

“Yeah?” came Olette’s voice, confusion written all over her face as she turned to face them.

Xion continued on his behalf by responding, “There’s something we need to talk to you about. Hayner and Pence, you might be interested in hearing this too. It’s a bit of a long story so let’s make ourselves comfortable first.”

The girl gestured towards the available spaces.

As soon as they had gotten their message across, silence fell over them like a blanket. Instead of the comforting feel that came when one was swaddled in a fluffy blanket, the air was wrought thick with tension.

Roxas could see the muscles in Hayner’s face contorting, struggling to come to terms with the fact that somehow Olette – sweet, innocent Olette – had somehow gotten roped into something that should not have been her problem to begin with, but Kairi had chosen her and Olette could not run from her calling.

“So, I’m a Princess of Heart,” she echoed. There was not a single sign of distraught in the way she spoke those words. Instead, there was satisfaction, jumbled with tinctures of relief and contentment. “Kairi chose me.”

Everything suddenly seemed to make sense, now that all the pieces had fallen into place. Olette had spent the past two weeks, trying to make sense of the light overflowing into her senses, seeping into the small little things she did.

“Kairi had a very important role to play,” Xion began, finding the right words to string together so as to not alarm her new friends. “She is the guiding light of Sora, as well as Riku. She is the sea that connects them both, the link that chains them together, but as time passed by, Riku found his own way. Sora has yet to find his own but the goodness of his heart has allowed us to be here—”

Her eyes linked with Roxas for a brief moment, seeing all the gratefulness swimming in his eyes as she reminded the two of them that they were truly blessed — that because of his other, they were together once again.

In an instant, the light from his eyes faded, shifting to a stormy blue instead of the azure blue she had gotten accustomed to.

Roxas added on, “We wanted to let you know about this so that you have a choice. You can either accept that or you can reject it. We will find a way to help you figure out to pass the power on to someone else if that’s the case. ”

A few more moments of silence.

“When can you give us an answer?” Xion questioned Olette, eyes seeking out for any sort of confirmation.

Like fireworks in the sky, Hayner exploded.

“Hey, what the heck?! You just spring this on her and you expect her to come to a decision already?” he cried out furiously. Had it not been for Pence, Xion was absolutely certain that the hot-tempered male would have come bounding over in their direction, asking for more answers than what they could already offer.

Roxas had to remind himself that the only time he had ever seen his friend upset was when the virtual version of him had witnessed him with Seifer, misinterpreting the situation. This was the real-life version of him, not the data-constructed version.

He was, first and foremost, human.

The blonde-haired male had to remind himself that Hayner, Pence and Olette’s bond ran much deeper than almost any other.

“Because being a Princess of Heart is dangerous in itself,” Roxas retorted, feeling his temper rise and fall with every breath as he struggled to contain himself. “As long as there is light, there will be darkness. The Heartless will constantly chase after her when they realise that she’s a Princess of Heart. That's just how it works.”

It was Pence who voiced out his concerns next.

“This is a lot of information to take in,” he admitted. The way he spoke was unusually low, devoid of any of the fun that made Pence, well, Pence. Roxas made eye contact with him and the apprehension in his friend’s eyes did not go unnoticed. “It’s not something that we can decide in a day.”

“We understand that,” Xion stepped in, not wanting for Roxas to get himself even more emotionally compromised. She could see the tautness in his shoulders as he did his best to maintain his calm facade. “That’s why it is up to Olette to make a choice. Even though the Heartless have significantly decreased in numbers, as long as darkness exists in people’s heart, they never truly go away.”

Olette’s voice broke through the thick blanket of silence.

“Kairi chose me. How?”

“We don’t know how, but she did,” Roxas murmured with a distant look in his eyes. He knew that both him and Xion needed to provide a reason as to why Kairi even chose her in the first place, but he found it hard to do without feeling Sora’s pain. Even though he had been separated from Sora, there was a part of him that was still intricately connected to him as Sora’s (ex-)Nobody. “Kairi hasn’t been around for a while. Sora’s looking for her, as we speak, but it seems like she has done what she needed to do.”

That was to be Sora’s light. Did it mean he had found her? His heart swelled with proud at the thought and as he cast a glance in Xion’s direction, he knew that she was thinking of the same thing.

“What happened?” Pence piped in, curiosity already eating away at him.

The flash of hurt that crossed their faces encouraged him to drop the subject altogether. No matter how long it had been, it was still difficult for them to talk about it, although they knew they’d have it easier than Sora. That was, if he were here with them.

There was a moment of deliberation between all of them before Olette tugged Pence and Hayner into a corner for a group huddle. For a brief moment, Roxas felt the hurt of being excluded once again; it reminded him of his time in the virtual Twilight Town. While the people there were just made out of data, the memories had been real to him.

Both him and Xion watched as the various emotions flickered across Hayner’s face, seeing as he was the only one who was still facing in their general direction. Xion took note of the tension in her friend’s shoulders, attributing it to everything that had occurred just now, and let a hand rest on his left shoulder. Thankfully, he relaxed under her touch, the tautness draining away from his being.

Olette turned to her Keyblade-wielding friends, with her hands clasped together in nervousness and anticipation, but her eyes blazed with determination; the girl was intent on taking responsibility.

“I’m okay with it,” Olette finally decided. “As long as Hayner and Pence are with me.”

Roxas and Xion grinned, following the baffled expressions of Hayner and Pence, which eventually morphed into wide grins.

“So, when do I start?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Olette is one of my favourite characters in the Kingdom Hearts series and I also adore the Twilight Town kids very much. They’re a very underrated trio and I think they deserve a lot more love than what was shown in the game.
> 
> It was also inspired by the revelation that Princesses of Heart are able to pass down their power once their role is complete. I’m well aware that, according to canon, Kairi is one of those who has not handed her role but what if she did? That was how this fanfic came about.


End file.
